Ex-deputy will get 18 years after detainees drown in locked van

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A deputy in South Carolina whose police van was swept away by floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two women in search of psychological well being treatment trapped in a cage within the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury discovered former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their households mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely seeking medication for her fear and anxiety and Inexperienced’s household stated she was dedicated to a psychological facility at an everyday psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of relatives of the women mentioned his choice to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson told the choose. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save lots of time.”

Circuit Courtroom Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every reckless homicide charge and ordered the sentences served back-to-back.

The floodwaters swept the police van off its wheels in September 2018 and pinned it towards a guardrail, preventing the ladies from with the ability to get out the sliding door they used to enter the van. Flood and a deputy with him didn't have a key to a second door and there was no emergency escape hatch, in keeping with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising before it got too harmful and rescuers could now not hear them.

“How terrible must which have been to sit down there and wait on your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas other factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply outdoors Nichols, however Flood drove round them after briefly speaking to the troopers.

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he couldn't turn round because he may not see the sting of the highway and was worried about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps it wounded his delight or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not simply standing in a tall puddle, but it surely was rushing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a horrible tragedy, others were making an attempt to unfairly blame just the former deputy as a substitute of the tools issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him regardless that taking the ladies to the psychological health facilities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you resist the urge to try to give justice to these two women by giving injustice to this good man," protection lawyer Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced advised the choose he tried everything he may to keep the women calm as the waters rose and help was slow to arrive.

“It was a series of errors on my half and different those who led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been eventually rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities stated. Bishop will stand trial for two counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, however it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they have been in a position to cut the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water acquired higher and faster and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood had to learn to follow the foundations and use frequent sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I can't neglect. Thankfully, I nonetheless remember my mother as a cheerful woman, a joyful woman who loved her household," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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Observe Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.